Anh Vo

December 19, 2013

Dr. Benjamin

Project 1: Separation of Hexane and Phorbol ester

VLE diagram:
1200.0

T-xy for HEXANE/PHORBOL

1100.0

T-x 1.0 bar

T-y 1.0 bar
1000.0
900.0
800.0700.0
Temperature F
500.0 600.0400.0
300.0
200.0
100.0

0.0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95 1.0
Liquid/Vapor Molefrac HEXANE

This was the T-x-y diagram at Psystem =1 bar for Hexane and Phorbol mixture

The property method used was RK-ASPEN

The compound Phorbol was set up using user defined section

Flash Vessel:

With the above condition, the result of the separation is shown as below:
More explore with different temperature and press, it is suggested that the higher the temperature, at
P=1 bar, the separation is much better.

We can compare with a lower temperature case as follow with temperature of 80 C:

From this table, as the temperature goes down, the separation gets worse
Distillation column:

A Distillation column was designed for the separation of Phorbol ester from Hexane as follow?

A high reflux ratio was used (12) this means that the cost of utility will be high for the separation of
Phorbol ester and Hexane. However, only a 10 stages column was used so it will not contribute more to
the cost of overall process. Below is the result of column separation:
A decent purity was attained from this set up of separation as we can see.